Ted Cruz’s Religious Play

February 8, 2016

Sen. Ted Cruz known for his brash, boastful and brutal proclamations is remaking himself in the image of the Lord Savior as he appeals to the Republican Religious Right to pave his way to the GOP nomination and the White House, as Bill Moyers and Gail Ablow describe.

By Bill Moyers and Gail Ablow

We found ourselves this week talking about two very different guys, both born in Canada, who skated to triumph thanks to their fans. If you follow hockey, you have already guessed the name of one of them: John Scott, the 6’8,” 275 lbs., unlikely Most Valuable Player in last Sunday’s NHL All-Star Game.

As Kelly McEvers put it on NPR’s All Things Considered, Scott is a “goon-made-good.” She was invoking hockey slang to describe an enforcer, the “goon” who is charged not to score goals but to knock heads. A professional brawler, if you will, who relies more on brute force than technical skill. He protects his teammates by starting a fight; defends the goaltender by starting a fight; and entertains the crowds by, yes, starting a fight.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican candidate for U.S. President.

Scott was a “journeyman” to boot, meaning that he travels from team to team and isn’t considered an elite player. Essential, yes; elite, no. Sort of like the bouncer at a nightspot.

Goons are the unlikeliest candidates for the All-Star Game and you have to scratch your head to remember the last time one made it. But John Scott’s fans adore him, and they voted him into last Sunday’s game over the protestations of the NHL brass, who seemed to loathe the very idea of a low-life in their big showcase competition.

When officials stepped in to try to stop him, even sending him briefly to the AHL, the minor league of hockey, these regular-guy fans went crazy. As Greg Wyshynski of Yahoo Sports told McEvers, “A chaotic group of miscreants and NHL fans on Reddit and social media pushed John Scott to the top of the popular vote.”

How did they do it? They took to the Internet, campaigned hard, and overrode the NHL to secure Scott’s berth. Not only did he score two goals for the victory, his teammates hoisted him aloft (all 300 lbs. of him with his gear), his fans voted him MVP, and the NHL brass had to hand him the gold, a million dollars in prize money. By the end of the night, Scott was the people’s champ, an everyman’s hero, triumphing despite hockey’s elite snobs doing their best to keep him down.

Now if you follow politics (as of course you do) you know the other Canadian-born guy in this story is Ted Cruz. He is another kind of enforcer who is always spoiling for a fight. Instead of brawling on the ice, he brawls in the courts, on the Senate floor, and on the campaign trail.

In Iowa, if they had wanted an enforcer, you might think the call would have gone to Donald Trump. But Trump is merely a bully who bungles scripture. Cruz is a brute, the Crusader Warrior, armed with spike and shield and holy zeal, summoning true believers to war against the infidels. Deus vult! they cried out in those days. “Godwills it!”

Unlike John Scott, who is said to be a nice guy, and humble, there’s malice in Ted Cruz’s swagger. When the Christian Right in Iowa bested Trump and the GOP establishment on Monday, lofting Cruz to victory, he shouted to the exultant worshippers, “To God be the Glory”, his self-referential pronouncement that a new Messiah had come to town.

Yet while Cruz may have won Iowa fighting the GOP elites, he’s no outsider, and he’s no down-to-earth “journeyman.” There is hardly an all-star team that he hasn’t made: Princeton, Harvard Law School, Supreme Court clerkship, boutique DC law firm.

As a teenager he told people he intended to be president. With a sharp mind and sharper elbows, he has always been determined to win MVP at all costs, never backing down from a fight, or an opportunity to climb higher.

Ted Cruz is no team player. He’s out for no one but himself. And he has a history of switching teams until they fulfill his ambitions.

Cruz was on George W. Bush’s team for the Florida recount in 2000, helping to stop the vote tallying there before Al Gore could be declared the winner, an ambitious 29-year-old gunning for a top post in the White House. When he didn’t get one, Cruz wrote in his 2015 autobiography that it was “a crushing blow.” He landed a job at the Federal Trade Commission instead.

Cruz didn’t stop fighting, but when his colleagues still didn’t value him as he thought he deserved, he switched leagues and went local back in Texas. As the state’s solicitor general, he began climbing the political ladder again, eventually considering a run for Texas attorney general.

And when he saw an opening on the Tea Party team in 2012, he used it to campaign for the U.S. Senate, picking fights with the Washington establishment that he felt had rebuffed him, and scoring an upset victory.

Once in the Senate his goon-inspired behavior soon antagonized just about everyone, including his fellow Republicans. No one was beyond the reach of his brass knuckles, sharp elbows, and forked tongue. He fought against the Affordable Care Act (including a 21-hour rant on the Senate floor), immigration reform, Planned Parenthood, and against the Anti-Christ, Barack Obama.

Now, to win the White House, Cruz has switched to the God Squad. He is the new Chosen One. His ground game in Iowa relied on scores of fundamentalist clergy, hundreds of volunteers, and his own father, Rafael, a Texas pastor who told a Christian TV channel that his son’s race for the White House was divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit.

It is as calculated as any of his previous plays. Robert Draper, inThe New York Times Magazine, did the math: “Of the 22 states that will be casting their ballots for a Republican nominee between Feb. 1 and March 5, 11 of them feature a Republican electorate that is more than 50 percent evangelical. Even more significant, the first state to vote is Iowa, roughly 60 percent of whose Republican caucus-goers describe themselves as evangelical Christians.” Deus vult!

Let us pause, and think upon the words of Eighteenth Century satirist Jonathan Swift, a man so versed in the vagaries of faith he served as dean of Dublin’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral: “But mark me well; Religion is my name;An angel once, but now a fury grown,Too often talk’d of, but too little known”

Bill Moyers is the managing editor of Moyers & Company and BillMoyers.com. Gail Ablow is a producer for Moyers & Company and a Carnegie Visiting Media Fellow, Democracy.

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25 comments for “Ted Cruz’s Religious Play”

Mickey

February 18, 2016 at 13:07

Cruz is very frightening. Even feared by the master of fright, Stephen King, author. I can’t understand how these so-called christian people can believe and follow this evil person. He has to be kept out of government. Wake up before it’s too late!

Dosamuno

February 11, 2016 at 09:25

Response to Evangelista:

You are a Godless Puritan!

â€”How can I be without something that doesnâ€™t exist?
I am neither a Calvinist nor â€œa person who is strict in moral or religious mattersâ€, and youâ€™re a fool for asserting that I am.

You are aggressive in advocating your (dis)belief. You are aggressively antagonistic to others of alternative belief. You porselytize as you despise.

â€”I imagine you mean â€œproselytizeâ€.
Wrong again. I do feel compelled to respond to people like you who feel obliged to share your love of Jesus with the rest of the world whether we want to share it or not.

And you quote Scriptures for support, verse-by-verse, out of context with no narrative connection to shore your (dis)beliefs!

â€”Can you provide the proper context for the scripture I cited? Or explain the anecdote of the fig tree?

You are a Godless Puritan! An Exemplary Example!

â€”Rhetorical flourish worthy of any good apologist for the nonsense of Christianity. Repetition plus use of assonance.

Not the first, or the only one, by any means, but your magnificent machne-gun-firing of New Testament verse-quotations in support for your deprecations places you among the elite of Puritan proselytizers.

â€”Ahhh. You know about alliteration too! Doesnâ€™t make sense, but sounds good to the baptized.

You stand as a Godless among the Godly in Puritania (a section of Heaven/Hell where Puritans are folded together to rage, rave and argue together, with each other, You can see how whether it is Heaven or Hell depends on your mood, and your success in argument each day).

â€”Unlike you, who never wastes his valuable time proselytizing Christian myth at anyone.

P.S.
As a scientist I feel obligated to point out that your statement â€œPeople who believe in gods are ignorant and uneducated.â€ is incorrect:

â€”A Christian Scientist or a real scientist? There are real scientists who believe in gods; however, they are a minorityâ€”about 20% of all scientists I believe.

One cannot be ignorant of a God and believe in the God, or disbelieve in the God. It is the way the human mind works: Gods must be conceived before They can be disbelieved. Think of â€œno parkingâ€ for an example: There must be â€œparkingâ€ first for there to be â€œno parkingâ€, a round sign with a â€˜Pâ€™ for the circle-with-slash to be over the top ofâ€¦etc., etc.

â€”Scholasticism and apologist rhetoric is so tiresome. Save it for the seminary.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs. Youâ€™ve come to the argument empty-handed.

Evangelista

February 11, 2016 at 21:13

Dosamuno,

Thank you for your response. I enjoyed it, too (I imagine you enjoyed writing it, too, so we are all ‘winners’, and Paradise reigns in Puritania, at least today)

Yes, my ‘porselytize’ was supposed to be ‘proselytize’; my dysLexus is the only Lexus I can afford (when it runs it runs ‘sic’, not well).

Another quote I like, which is relevant, and from one of your earlier posts, is: “my fire and brimstone is stoked by evangelical dimwits who feel obliged to push into the faces of others their absurd beliefs.” It indicates you recognize you are preaching, and demonstrates, as well as states, your aggressiveness, your being, as it were, apparently, a Crusader for your (dis)belief, willing to take up the cudgel, or sword, to attack what you perceive the ‘wrongs’ of others. It is, indeed, Calvinistic, and it does indeed indicate a strictness in regard to religious matters, and religious morals, which are not necessarily common and utilitarian morals.

You ask, “â€”Can you provide the proper context for the scripture I cited? Or explain the anecdote of the fig tree?”

The answer is Yes. Even though I am not a Judeo-Christian (there are other Christianities, too, which I am also not). You can, ehm, may I say, ‘divine’? the contexts for all of them, yourself, too: All you have to do is read the whole of the contexts, which means the Judeo-Christian Gospels the verses were written as parts of. You might be in a position of advantage compared to believing Judeo-Christians in that you do not carry excess inclination to credit entirely what you read. You will have a disadvantage if you are unable to read without antagonistic disbelief, if you are unable to suspend disbelief, as we all must whenever we read anything with interest to follow the story or understand the authors written expressions, whether we concur or not. I suggest starting with the Gospel of John, to get a best construction of Jesus of Nazareth as a personality. With that you can swing through the others critiquing how and why some of the elements of your quoted verses work or don’t work, are likely or unlikely. The fig tree blighting is one of the elements someone obviously cooked up with some intent to convey something, having qualified himself before he began for the question Jesus is given to ask again and again, in sometimes seeming exasperation, “Why do you misunderstand me?” (reading some of the given misunderstandings can give you clues to how some of the un-Jesus-like stuff got into the narrations. Once you have the trick for reading and discriminating between fits and doesn’t fit to the personality of Jesus, if you want to go on and read departures way afield, you can slide on to the Epistles of Paul, who is evidenced to have known all but nothing about the Gospel Jesus, but, having a substantial imagination his own convictions, made up as he went along, creating a very different Christian religion, the Judeo-Christian one that is the basis for all the Judeo-Christian ones today.

One of my favorite Jesus-quotation conflicts is between “If they are not against us they are for us”, and “If they are not for us they are against us”, both of which are given as said by Jesus. The second, of course, fits better to the Jesus of Paul of Tarsus and John of Patmos (Revelations) than the one of the Gospels.

As for my scientisticity, I am a real one, which means one of the Gods of the Secular Humanism Pantheon, responsible, in some peoplesâ€™ perceptions, for turning the natural world tweaked to a fine and functional balance by “Nature” (Darwin’s term for God, who overlooketh not even the little finch when she hath hard nuts to crack, and so tweaketh her beak so that she may…) into the out-of-balance and out-of-control pseudo-paradise we are today able to see to be careening toward some violent adjustments.

An incidental element of scientific approach, which you might find useful, is to eschew all pigeon-holes. Avoid accepting their classifications and review when you meet them, to determine what they might mean, fundamentally and in context extensions, which are often not the same. Christian and Capitalism are two, for examples, that are flung around in meanings entirely apart from their origins.

Dosamuno

February 12, 2016 at 10:55

Evangelista:

Jumping on your typo was cheap. I regret it.

The first section of John is poetry. There is much poetry in the bible; little historical or scientific truth.

I suspect that the first lines of John inspired some lines in Leonard Cohenâ€™s â€œThe Windowâ€:

For the holy one dreams of a letter
Dreams of a letter’s death
Oh bless the continuous stutter
Of the word being made into flesh

Most of the rest of John is hate-filled diatribe against Jews and Infidels.

I agree with you about Paul.
Your position is dangerously close to Marcionism.
Be careful lest thou be burnt for a Heretic.

Evangelista, our argument is futile.
I see no evidence that God exists or that Jesus existed.
Religion is mythology.

I donâ€™t imagine I can change your beliefs.

If youâ€™re right, you can send an â€œI told you soâ€ e-mail to Hell.

Anyone who reads Matthew 22:37-40 can see that Jesus Christâ€™s ministry was based on the love-your-neighbor-as-yourself principle. Those, like Ted Cruz, who falsely claim to represent Jesus Christ while advocating VIOLATIONS of the love-your-neighbor-as-yourself principle (e.g. advocating for the repeal of Obamacare and the funding for Planned Parenthood which would LITERALLY KILL tens of thousands of Americans PER YEAR by denying them access to healthcare) are in effect â€œantichrists!â€ They are preaching the OPPOSITE of what Jesus Christ would preach. That is an easily observable FACT! Who in their right mind would vote to be led by an â€œantichrist?â€

Dosamuno

February 10, 2016 at 10:44

Well documented by whom? By Christian sources. Even many non Christian sources were bowdlerized by Christian scribes.

The quotes are not “my interpretations”; they are quotes from the gospels as represented in The King James Bible.

I am the beneficiary of a Christian education and know damned well what I’m talking about. You are right in saying that I have no idea who Jesus was or what he was saying. That seems to be a function of the sect or scholar trying to figure things out.

I agree with biblical scholar, Robert Price:

â€œChrist may be said to be a fiction in the four senses that 1) it is quite possible that there was no historical Jesus. 2) Even if there was, he is lost to us, the result being that there is no historical Jesus available to us. And 3) the Jesus who “walks with me and talks with me and tells me I am his own” is an imaginative visualization and in the nature of the case can be nothing more than a fiction. And finally, 4) “Christ” as a corporate logo for this and that religious institution is a euphemistic fiction, not unlike Ronald McDonald, Mickey Mouse, or Joe Camel, the purpose of which is to get you to swallow a whole raft of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors by an act of simple faith, short-circuiting the dangerous process of thinking the issues out to your own conclusions.â€

Zachary makes some good points: he usually does. However, my fire and brimstone is stoked by evangelical dimwits who feel obliged to push into the faces of others their absurd beliefs.

bobzz

February 10, 2016 at 11:29

I did not “push” anything. I recognize you are reciting Scriptures but without understanding their metaphorical meaningâ€”like Christians citing literal Quran passages to stereotype them. At least I hope you and Zachary can recognize that I agree: Christians have no warrant from Christ or the apostles to IMPOSE their position on others. It is not Christlike:). OK, I am done now.

Dosamuno

February 10, 2016 at 12:35

You donâ€™t even know what a metaphor is, so you should not be using words like â€œmetaphoricâ€.

13.Â And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet.
14.Â And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it.

Evangelista

February 10, 2016 at 21:36

Dosamuno,

You are a Godless Puritan!

You are aggressive in advocating your (dis)belief. You are aggressively antagonistic to others of alternative belief. You porselytize as you despise.

And you quote Scriptures for support, verse-by-verse, out of context with no narrative connection to shore your (dis)beliefs!

You are a Godless Puritan! An Exemplary Example!

Not the first, or the only one, by any means, but your magnificent machne-gun-firing of New Testament verse-quotations in support for your deprecations places you among the elite of Puritan proselytizers. You stand as a Godless among the Godly in Puritania (a section of Heaven/Hell where Puritans are folded together to rage, rave and argue together, with each other, You can see how whether it is Heaven or Hell depends on your mood, and your success in argument each day).

P.S.
As a scientist I feel obligated to point out that your statement “People who believe in gods are ignorant and uneducated.” is incorrect: One cannot be ignorant of a God and believe in the God, or disbelieve in the God. It is the way the human mind works: Gods must be conceived before They can be disbelieved. Think of “no parking” for an example: There must be “parking” first for there to be “no parking”, a round sign with a ‘P’ for the circle-with-slash to be over the top of…

bobzz

February 9, 2016 at 22:02

Apologize for the duplication

Dosamuno

February 9, 2016 at 20:55

The fictitious character of the Gospels, Jesus Christ, would have been as big a friend to tyrants, the rich and powerful, and Republican warmongers and whoremongers as the Catholic Church and other churches are today:

Matthew 10: 34-35 (KJV)

34. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
35. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

Matthew 13:41-42 (KJV)

41. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
42. And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Luke 12:49-53 (KJV)

49 I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?
50 But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!
51 Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:
52 For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three.
53 The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

Luke 14:26 (KJV)

26. If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

Luke 19:27 (KJV)

27. But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.

Luke 22:36 (KJV)

36 Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.

John 2:4 (KJV)

4. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.

John 15:6 (KJV)

6. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

If Jesus had existed, he would have been as big an asshole as the God of the Jews or Allah and his pedophile prophet.

People who believe in gods are ignorant and uneducated.

bobzz

February 9, 2016 at 22:01

The history of the early church does not bear out your interpretations; there is such a thing as metaphor, you know. Early critics of the church were quite put off by Christians’ refusal to hold public office, serve in the military, or participate in the festivals of empire. They did not attend the gladiatorial games. They were accused of atheism for their belief in one God and were thought to be enemies of the empire because they did not support the empire’s gods. They were persecuted precisely because they were seen as enemies of the empire without retaliating. This is all pretty well documented. The church has not been ALL bad even after Constantine. They started hospitals and were exemplary in charity, which chafed Justin, the Apostate, no end, because it attracted converts, but in union with the state, I agree it has not been pretty. You seem to be on the opposite side of the same coin with Ted Cruz; you have no idea who Jesus was or what he was really saying.

Zachary Smith

February 10, 2016 at 01:53

People who believe in gods are ignorant and uneducated.

Possibly this is the case, but a person doesn’t have to believe in a god or gods to be ignorant.

Very likely your local library has some of the books by a gentleman named Bart Ehrman. He grew up as a fundamentalist christian, and became a true-believer preacher of his religion. But as luck would have it, he wanted to improve his faith by getting a college education. THAT’s when things started falling apart for him. I believe he is currently a university professor and a born-again atheist.

That said, Ehrman neatly explains most if not all of the stuff you’re fulminating about. There are lots of things in the Bible Jesus never said and couldn’t have possibly believed. The New Testament is a religious equivalent of the old saw – “figures don’t lie, but liars figure”. His output would be a good beginning.

When you have come to understand the world Jesus lived in and his own beliefs about how to recover his homeland, I predict you’ll ease up on much of your own fire and brimstone.

bobzz

February 10, 2016 at 11:13

Quite a few that grew up in fundamentalism cashed out when they learned it is unsustainable. I went in the opposite direction from Erhman. I grew up agnostic and converted to fundamentalism. With curiosity and study, I have moved from fundamentalism to a more solid understanding of the faith. The more I learn from believing and unbelieving scholars, the more enriched faith has become (not blind faith). I have read Ehrman’s work, the new atheists, etc., and find them unconvincing. I don’t expect atheists to PROVE God does not exist inasmuch as one cannot prove a ‘presumed’ negative. But if, for example, Crossan is going to claim the dogs ate Jesus body, I want evidentiary backing. One just can’t throw stuff like that out there and call it credible. Crossan’s theory only has cachet among those for whom atheism is an a priori position (and again, I am just using him as a illustration). My guess is that atheism originated more from reaction to the oppressive church than anything else. But, Zachary, where did I talk fire and brimstone? Fulminating? Is it fulminating to respond in a civil manner to what I consider to be inaccuracies. I’ve said enough. Don’t want to anger anyone. You all have the floor, but I have learned that I am stereotypical ignorant, uneducated, liar that figures. That’s OK. I can take it:)

Zachary Smith

February 10, 2016 at 12:16

Sorry for the misunderstanding, but my reply was to Dosamuno.

bobzz

February 10, 2016 at 14:04

Sorry, I misunderstood, Zach.

Dosamuno

February 10, 2016 at 13:38

Zack,

Have not read Ehrman, but have read my fill of apologists and interpreters of â€œHolyâ€ texts: Justin Martyr, Origin, Augustine of Hippo, and the rest. Have also read Burton Mack, who is excellent, the Bauer brothers, and other Christian historians.

Itâ€™s obvious that the Christian Bible, the Jewish Torah, The Quran, and Ovidâ€™s Metamorphosis are mythology and should be studied as such.

Nevertheless, will check out Ehrman on your say so.

bobzz

February 9, 2016 at 19:27

Seventeen centuries of “Christendom” has obscured the fact that Jesus inaugurated an APOLITICAL kingdom of Godâ€”a movement in which we did our best work outside of the political system. That is why we were persecuted. We would not bow to the slave making Roman empire. Well, that brief shining moment lasted for roughly two and a half centuries, and as most know, we left the path with Constantine and the Theodosians and never recovered but for rare exceptions. Ted Cruz has no idea who Jesus was.

Both Cruz, and his Roman Catholic counterpart, Rubio, are committing pragmatic blasphemy by using faith in Jesus to feed a vote-ingesting beast. “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces (Matthew 7:6).”

Joe Tedesky

February 8, 2016 at 17:04

What all good Christians should think about is, if a candidate such as Cruz would be able to introduce his religious values into America’s governmental discourse, that this would be a good way of also introducing Sharia Law into it as well. Smart Americans would be wise to keep our government secular, and keep religion in the churches, temples, and mosques. As the saying goes, ‘watch what you wish for’.

J'hon Doe II

February 8, 2016 at 10:13

These are sorrowful days in America… .
.
Where love rules, there is no will to power;
and where power predominates, there love is lacking.
Carl Jung

:

With Hope there is tomorrow and Faith brings promise,
with Devotion we fulfill Trust and so will Love follow.
J’hon Doe II

Andrew Nichols

February 8, 2016 at 08:47

I just dont know who the Jesus is that Ted Cruz keeps mentioninsg because he doesn’t bear any resemblance to the one I call Saviour. Not one I’d want to follow.

Tom Welsh

February 8, 2016 at 06:22

Yes, the resemblance between Ted Cruz and the Lord Saviour is very marked indeed. As we all know, Jesus was very much in favour of attacking people with nuclear weapons.